Happenings including Zucchini

Heather and Will are gone. Monte drove them home over the weekend. Now he's on to Houston for some meetings. I've got computer editing and art work to do, so missing them won't be so bad. I did hear a bit of music the other morning that reminded me of one of Will's toys and had to remind myself they're not here.

Dawson and friends started logging our woods this past weekend. There's lots of dead trees to cut down, especially the aspen, before they drop their leaves and then we don't know which are dead. I prefer burning aspen in the stove over pine, it burns hotter. We don't have hardwood in our woods. The aspen were just starting to show tinges of yellow for their Fall color. Don't know what this heavy snow will do - maybe break some branches and just turn the leaves brown.

I cleaned the front porch of summer wind debris and made room for the chopped wood, moving furniture around. Our front porch gets the brunt of the wind and on the north side of the house, so total shade. Monte had made me window boxes years ago, but I gave up on real plants. So Saturday I changed out the summer fake flowers to fall's (click here to see a picture). Dawson brought a load of wood into the house, which I'm burning today. "Why" you might ask? Because it's snowing! Arghhhhhh...!!!!!!

I have been afraid to look at the ten-day weather forecast knowing our first frost was coming any day now ... but several inches of heavy snow?! It was close to 80 degrees 24 hours before, so it's melting as fast as it's coming down, I'm sure. Since I've not had a Monet wildflower garden before I don't know how many of the flowers are tender and will die. I was SO enjoying them! Saturday I put the potted plants I wanted to save in the greenhouse where they'll stay now all winter. Sunday I picked all the squash and beans, should have pulled all the basil ... can I make pesto from frozen basil? (I have a friend I can get some basil from - mine were so small - cool summer - and still have pesto in freezer from last year.) I covered some of my tomato plants. We'll see.

AND we did have a bear again - got into the bird feeders twice last week. How, with the electric fence? At first we thought it walked over the long front porch to the back. But no, the second day, Monte noticed the back wires next to the house spread apart. We didn't finish the split-rail fence there cuz we're going to do a gate. And would a little prick of pain, maybe like a mosquito bite, hurt a thick-haired bear? Probably not. Monte put up more boards and wire and wrapped some wires with bacon. That ought to hurt - so, Yes to pain and no gain (I hope)!

I started a big batch of sourdough starter today for making zucchini bread tomorrow. The recipe from the book Nourishing Traditions calls for 2 cups buttermilk to 3 cups flour (I ground kamut) to sit for up to 24 hours before making the bread. It's a master recipe for banana, apricot almond, or ... Having made it once before, I'm going to add a bit more maple syrup since zucchini is not sweet like bananas.

I went to our local health food store on my way to pick up our weekly farm share this late afternoon (snowing cats and dogs - ugghh) to get more eggs and buttermilk and they had some unhomogenized milk, so I've got it warming by the stove to make my own cultured buttermilk. It's got to set out at room temp for about 18 hours. This is an experiment from the Milk book I wrote about not long ago - I've not done it before, tho I make yogurt all the time.

I've already froze a lot of Zucchini, Potato, Onion soup (click to see the recipe). We really do like it reheated over winter. I've grated zucchini and froze it before, but found I don't use it, so prefer the soup and bread. Monte likes to dry slices of the bread, I like slices heated with thin sliced cheese on it.

Supposed to be back close to 80 again by Friday. Should I report on what survived? Now it'll be Indian Summer and Heather and Will will return around Thanksgiving for the Holidays. Dawson's hating his homework this semester. It's the Jewish Rosh Hashanah's High Holy Days and our church is celebrating it this year - a first, and I'm loving, living it!

BEAR

I had to open up August 2007 to see what I posted. I began this blog almost two years ago and I remembered a lot of initial posts about a bear. That's when we FINALLY after years of frustration got an electric fence! Now we can sleep in peace and Monte doesn't have to sleep out in a tent with his gun. :-D

Yes, there is a story of Monte sleeping out there. An old friend used to make up songs about some of our sagas and a naked Monte sneaking about our neck of the woods was put to music. One of the naked Monte stories involved a skunk ... are you curious? I might tell you.

Monte heard a bear last night. I heard his footsteps upstairs running, not meandering. I was knitting. I finally took the time to undo part of a monkey I'm knitting and figuring it out so I can continue.

It was a good day yesterday. I had bought more perennial plants last week. I read in the 2007 August postings that I strive to fill in spots in my perennial beds for blooming throughout the seasons ... which reminds me of an old book by Gene Stratton-Porter called The Harvester in which the main character prepared his home setting for a woman in need of healing. He took care in planning the gardens thinking through the season's visual interests. And I'm still filling in spots, both with new purchases, starting my own plants, dividing my old plants and moving things around.

Ahhh ... Gene Stratton-Porter ... if you've not read her books ... We visited her historic place in Indiana on a road trip. At that time they were excited because something like a time-capsule was found in Alaska containing old movies. They were hoping some of Gene's old movies would be in there since some of them are long gone. For years we've collected and read all her books, written in the early 1900's.

Most people are familiar with Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost. Gene was a lady ahead of her times and yet so much a part of her times in a way that helped me see my grandmother Nellie Herder's world. Characters in her books were herbalists collecting plants and insects and such from the woods for that day's medicines. My grandmother was a homeopathic nurse and she understood these medicines and would grumble about the new medicines the medical world was moving into. Gene's characters were photographers, moth collectors (there are moth's more beautiful than butterflies - I know, cuz Dawson has some in his collection - and that's got its own stories I could tell) and bird watchers and keepers of the woods so lumber companies couldn't cut down heirloom trees. Gene herself made her bathroom into a darkroom for developing her own photos (I did that in high school - fun).

Anyway, I'm still gardening. I woke this morning with thoughts of moving some plants, like a grapevine, to Dawson's newest bed he just finished. This is the last bed to be made. I didn't want to make him do anymore rock work, which meant collecting truckloads of rock from excavating a neighbor did as well as truckloads of topsoil. BUT, when I said I'd be content to leave the area the already flat level it was, he said, "But I want to make a spiral bed!" Wasn't he joking? No! "Okay, go ahead and do what you want." Monte finished posts that extend our pergola out into the new deck to the hot tub. (Remember the old posts about the oozing hot tub plant bed that collapsed? It's just finished now too. And it's still oozing/draining from the gravel and pipe the boys put in.)(See the blue wheel-barrow in the above picture? All this labor over the years ruined it. Dawson forged and welded the metal anew and Monte sanded and refurbished the wood handles. I painted it. It's like new!)

Once all the rocks are moved, finishing off some areas left in limbo, we'll get the last bit of area ready to put down some sod. Beyond his spiral bed is an area Monte will finish. He's already dumped large lichen covered rocks and will arrange it along with the knight he brought up from the lower garden and he wants to move some natural plants from the surrounding meadows, like Colorado wild irises and kinnikinnik bushes (notice it spells backwards the same?)(and there's a kinnikinnik story I could tell of Travis). Monte still has to get some picket fencing - he wants French Gothic - to do some finishing garden visual touches and make gates for the split-rail fence.

Gates ... lack of ... that's where the bear came through last night. Originally it was in our trash trailer - that's when Monte heard it. We went up to his office for a better view. I couldn't get a picture of it. The motion-sensor light on the tree went on backlighting the bear standing in the trailer rummaging for anything edible. The only smelly thing in there would be diapers (Heather's switched to cloth diapers now when not on the road). But not diapers ... he found some of Dawson's vehicle trash and licked clean some Starbucks cups. With composting and recycling there's nothing worth raiding the trailer for anymore.

We thought he'd go get into the compost bins, which Monte thought "okay - he'd stir it up" :) - but he didn't. He/she/it just rambled toward the house. We had to run down from the office to head him off. That's when Monte saw him come under the electric fence at a spot Dawson's finishing rock stairs up from the driveway parking area to our backyard. He could have then ruined the birdfeeders, like the bear did over and over again two years ago. Monte yelled him away and proceeded, in his socks and underwear, to put a board in front of the future gate opening and put the rails back into the split-rail where the truck has been driving through. He said, "It's an adolescent bear"... "How can you tell?!" ... "It's not big". I thought it big enough ... big enough to do damage ... control of my domain has be shattered.

It was a nice day ... I finished planting, putting my watering wand on mist to keep me cool while planting and weeding, cleaned everything up before it rained, knit listening to "Prairie Home Companion" and went to church. Went to church last night cuz Monte left early to go fishing. Dawson and friends are up Mt Evans backpacking. They left Friday morning and will come home Monday night. Monte's meeting them on top at Lincoln Lake and will come home later today with fish. Yes he will ... he always comes home from that lake with fish. It's a snowmelt sink hole near the top of the 14,000 foot mountain top. He has to hike down about 1000 feet. Dawson hiked up.

Me? I didn't go. "Enjoy your day!" Monte said as he kissed me goodbye as I lay in bed. I've now taken time to write! Hi. Bye. Tata for now.

Tulips and Mud

Not much happening calendar-wise for Calendar Girl me. That is, nothing important to me with a story that touches me. But the race is on with the calendar and the gardening season - that's where my heart is right now.

We got to name the road we live on, which is Singing Springs Lane. We sing, and there's lots of springs around our property. Some of the springs only show up with excavation and spring snow melts ... like now.

Dawson had finished the rock work around the hot tub, and I've got plants to plant there in the greenhouse. But the ground is still oozing and it's soup. So for the future, Monte wants to put in gravel and a drainage pipe. It'll be in limbo for awhile.

Tarda tulips are blooming. I'd plant tons of tulips because I love them, but hybrid tulips don't last long. Tarda tulips are the original wild tulips that all the others have been developed from.

I have so much weeding to do. There are thousands! of these baby weeds - not sure what they are. Could have come from last year's gypsophilia is all I can think of.

Planted some nursery potted raspberries yesterday. We've got lots of wild raspberries around, but I'm wanting to see what other raspberries will do. While there in the garden, I picked green onion stalks and asparagus to eat together while working.

Did I say I'm trying sweet potatoes this year? I do already have regular potatoes in pots and the first batch is almost to the top of the pot already, with the addition of soil as they grow. Well, I got some sweet potato slips and decided to try them in pots. I couldn't find any info about doing them that way. But they vine and flower like morning glories, so I thought I'd put bamboo poles in them. And from reading, I'm guessing the tubers just grow down like most root plants and not up, like potatoes. We'll see. When all set up, I'll post pictures.

May Day

Two days of thick pea soup fog. But I have been outside and got my bareroot things planted - which means all our snow melted. Will we get some more overnight? We could, but it's May! and it warms quickly when the sun's shining.

The first picture shows some of my little Spring friends. Years ago when I was healing from a hospital surgery, I made cute seasonal reminders - could call them icons (simile, likeness ... I think of icons as windows, or glimpses into a reality or truth). I have some Waldorf books from Europe that have great ideas for children (including me) for celebrating the seasons and rhythms of life.

Do you see from the next picture what they might represent? I pull them out each Spring from my bins of calendar visuals. The little brown thing is a seed pod with a cute face. I so look forward from seemingly dead winter - awaiting the buried seeds to spring to life.

A friend who used to live close by would leave me flowers by my door early in the morning or in my mail box May 1st for May Day. I think of doing it myself, but haven't yet.

I've got some potatoes 'chitting' and others planted. I'm planting all potatoes this year in pots. I talked about doing it earlier and here's the site with info I liked best. I put newspaper in the pot bottom only to keep the dry potting soil from falling through the holes. The site mentions only putting 5 seed potatoes in the pot, I had 12 of one potato variety, so that's why my picture shows 6 in the pot bottom. There's only 4" of soil in there for now, covering the potatoes. Once they grow up about 6-8" I'll cover them with more soil, and continue this process till they've grown to the top of the pot.

My greenhouse is fuller than ever with seedlings. This year I put all my dahlias in pots, rather than digging them up next fall to store over winter - since one pot wintered over in my greenhouse now has a dahlia a foot tall. I put bamboo poles in them and have added gladiola bulbs and some vining sweet pea plants.

In my garden I've planted more asparagus - purple this time, more strawberries, a couple more rhubarb, native plums, elderberry, saskatoon blueberry, patriot blueberry (almost filling the planting hole with peat for an acid soil), carmen cherry and bush cherry, and crab apple, and I'm trying a honeycrisp apple.

The last picture is of a swan gourd I bought at an Amish road-side booth in Wisconsin and dried. I actually brought home 5 and only one dried nice.

Gardening and Blog

I found a great gardening blog. They garden for a restaurant. I was googling growing potatoes in a pot, which is what I'm going to do this year - and found this site. You've gotta see what she plants in the hole before putting in the tomato plant (like fish head, 2 aspirin ... :)

We've been getting more snow, which is a good thing, and more to come. I'm starting my seeds in the greenhouse now.

Heather sent me a picture of the little garden I started for her that first week of February while I was in Texas. I don't know if this picture shows them, but I'd started some tomatoes in an aerogarden she has, before I left, and she says she's given some of them away, some are in pots and she put some in this garden. I don't know how much longer lettuce will grow in Texas heat, but she's been eating salads everyday. Heather sounds good. She'll find out next Monday if her pneumonia is all gone.

Alchemy

A post-it note I used to have on my old computer had the words "Alchemy of my soul". It was just a phrase to remind my mind to contemplate each day.

Years ago the kids and me were learning about the Periodic Table of Elements. One of our library books was more of a story of the table's formation. Alchemy was the impetus. The driving desire was to transform matter into gold, and basic elements were discovered.

So more contemplation coordinating with the season ... I was reading about "garbage into gold" - composting!! Monte, helping me shovel compost yesterday, always amazed and in awe, kept exclaiming, "All that stinky food waste - moldy leftovers from the fridge, rotten veggies from the cold storage in the garage - transformed into black gold!"

When you spread an inch or two of compost on your garden beds, there's no need for fertilizers.

I thank God for the transformation of my soul into the image of Him - that's true alchemy!

Perennial Potager

This week we're supposed to get snow. After an abnormally warm week of close to 70 degrees we'll only be close to 40 for the high this week. But as I posted earlier, this is the time we've been dumped on before (and it was more like 7 ft than 3, cuz the drifting did cover our truck). I think we're south of the dumping going on right now - close to the Wyoming border and out east on the prairie.

As I cleaned up all my perennial beds this week: cutting back most everything (this is the first time I've cut all the raspberries to the ground, they're volunteers in two perennial beds with peonies, lilac, etc, because of Monte bringing the dirt up from the woods, but they're everbearing, meaning they fruit on new stalks ... I hope), shredding all and adding it to the compost bin, and tossing manure and compost on all the beds, I was reminiscing ... I don't know if I've ever been able to clean out the bed on the north side of the house, our front porch, this early. There's usually a snow bank. And some years! ... like when the guys shovel off the porch roof, and then Dawson decides he wants a snow cave, and ices everything ... it doesn't melt till mid May!

I think I'm thee compost queen (other than Martha Stewart, tho she doesn't do most of her own labor any more). It's a joke of ours: I don't want jewelry and such stuff for Mother's Day, just make me a nice compost bin! After going thru many that just weren't right, I'm now content. In our large lower 6ft fenced garden, the compost bin is working. And up by the house, where my gardening is enlarging, I've got a beautiful three-bin one - beautiful cuz Monte linseed oiled it.

I've read of other people's daffodils done blooming and even lilacs by now. I'm at 8,000 ft. Tho I grow most plants for zone 4, we still have only 90 frost-free-days give or take, which isn't long! In some areas I've created micro-climates and have gotten zone 5 plants to survive. So I'm just now seeing the green tips of flowering bulbs poking out and early flowers: snowdrops, crocus, and dwarf iris. And looking at my photos, I see that last year's did not poke out till mid April! So we're warmer this year and not much winter snow.

Of all the library books on kitchen and cottage gardens, my favorite, which I've decided to own, is Designing the New Kitchen Garden - An American Potager Handbook by Jennifer R Bartley. I was reminded of college classes - I started out with a nutrition major and switched to Landscape Architecture (I didn't finish either since Monte and me had married in the midst of my schooling and he was done with schooling and ready to start life, and the life I prefer is everything having to do with home and I didn't need to go to work elsewhere). This book starts with a brief history of kitchen gardens: monastic to the French ... It's a book I'm going to read every word of, with lots of colored pictures, many of them hand-drawn showing her landscape architecture background - like birds-eye views, isometric views, and cross-sections, along with lots of charts.

I've got a lot of work to do this spring. Since with Dawson's rock work last summer (I posted pictures of it last late summer)(and he just did some more yesterday) I've now established a bed strictly for herbs, I have a large old bed with a mixture of perennials I'm going to move. It's very sheltered by the house from the cool wind and is probably a zone 5. It's going to become the very warm summer veggie bed. But I think I'll leave the existing current, gooseberry, and jostaberry bushes there. As I've mentioned before, I was told I can't grow tomatoes here, but I do, very successfully. But I've always had to put them in the same spot and use walls-of-water. I'm thinking more of the need to rotate (yet tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are in the same family ... hmmm).

I'm trying blueberries again. I called in on a local radio garden show and the "garden wise-guys" suggested I put 95% peat in the planting hole (I actually called to ask about using pine mulch in our area: pine needles). Good to know, I knew I needed to add some peat in our very alkaline soil, but I'd not have done that much. Our lower garden, is now going to be more berry, fruit (dwarf trees and bushes) oriented. I'm adding more this year. Chokecherries and rhubarb were already there from an old homestead planting maybe a hundred years ago.

But what fruit to put up by the house? I'm doing all the veggie growing at the house mixed in with the perennials from now on (I should say "most all", since I don't know what other years will bring. I may go back to doing my mass broccoli planting or winter squash down in the lower garden. Some years I freeze 30lbs of broccoli!). I already have two dolga crab apple trees up here, but am thinking of adding a honeycrisp apple. What I have to think thru is our late frosts. If things blossom too soon, no fruit ... My lower garden is on the edge of the woods with lots of aspen and might not be as warm earlier ... those are the mini-climate thoughts I have to deal with. And should I put strawberries up here too (I am putting some in hanging pots this week in my greenhouse).

Jennifer writes, "Potagers are places of restoration that provide food and nourishment. A deep and mysterious relationship exists between food and having our spirits lifted, and this relationship is profoundly and ultimately tied to the garden." I couldn't agree more. "Potager"? It's root is from French meaning a soup of broth with vegetables, but for Europeans  the word has come to mean a vegetable garden. 

A Alfred Austen wrote, "Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are". Well ... mine is very much a tapestry with informal clumps of color, form and height ... chaotic yet harmony ... romantically gentle, with not very straight lines, striving for more curving paths ... fragrant, and flowers to cut and adorn inside my home. My gardening is a huge source of nourishment for me, both the exercise it gives me, a quiet place to read, pray, and think, and feel in sync with nature (God's heart's other "book"). It's both a sensory and emotional pleasure - beauty out my windows, with even winter visual pleasure.

Years ago I had a bunch of books from the library on the history of art. I remember one talking about the cottage gardens and the practicality of growing fruit and vegetables amidst beautiful flowering perennials and annuals. Some artists walking the back country roads fell in love with these peasant gardens and we now have paintings of them.

In a blog I love, Wisteria and Roses, Debbie posted a picture of one of Monet's famous paintings. I have a book called Artist's Gardens (I think it's out of print) and it shows how artists have been inspired by gardens, even creating their own beautiful gardens. Monet created a water garden with a bridge. He also redid the front entrance garden, much to the classical formal gardeners of his time's disgust, full of nasturtiums - I love it! I always grow nasturtiums (their foliage and flowers are edible, with a peppery flavor, and their seeds can be pickled as capers).

I really need to end this post and get on with finishing my garden planning and scrapbook - my goal for this cold week. But I feel I need to add a bit more on Martha Stewart. I have her first books before she became famous. She did used to do most all her yard work herself along with her husband. I love her gardening book, and there's a cookbook that shows her yard with the mixture of perennials, veggies and fruit, and chickens. I had the same chickens as hers with the eggs that became her signature colors. I think Martha gave America something very needed. She put the heart back into the beauty of homemaking, attracting people back to home.

"What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it."  :-D

- Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden

Chicken Parmesan (and Eggplant, and Beef)

My sister wanted me to post the recipe I made last week while in Arizona. I took leftovers with me to share with Kelli and Richard. I get a lot of my favorite recipe ideas these days from Cooks Illustrated. I stopped buying the magazines years ago and just wait for the end of the year - I have all of them from the beginning in hard-bound books and have a 15 year index. Their recipe has a home-made tomato sauce which I usually do, but with organic spagetti sauce so readily available, I'm using it more and more. (The eggplant and beef isn't a part of their recipe, it's just to show you other possibilities).

Have a bowl with beaten egg and pinch of salt, and
another bowl of 1C bread crumbs mixed with
1/2 tsp salt, and a pinch of pepper.
Typically parmesan cheese is mixed in with the bread crumbs, but I like how this recipe puts it on later and broils it. (I did the beef last night with the parmesan cheese in the bread crumbs. I pick up organic beef at my local store, regularly finding it 1/2 off and buying all that's there and freeze it. So last night's recipe used tenderloin steaks cut in bite size pieces, coated with the bread crumb cheese mixture and broiled a short bit till surface is crunchy - on a foil lined cookie sheet.)

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
(I always cut it in thin pieces, sometimes pounding it flat)
Dip the chicken pieces in the egg and then the bread and put on a rack till all done.
Heat 1/4C olive oil over med-high heat in a skillet and brown chicken on both sides. Put them back on the cleaned rack over a cookie sheet
and top with 1/4C (1 oz) grated parmesan and 3/4C (3oz) grated mozzarella and
broil 4-5" from heat source till spotty browned.
Serve over cooked spaghetti with sauce.

I've done eggplant the same way too, but this time I browned both sides of 1/2" slices of eggplant brushed with olive oil under broiler, then sprinkled on the same grated cheeses and broiled again.

Last night's sauce was home-made from tomatoes that ripened from our garden. I had lots in a paper bag that were still green and most have turned red. I grew the Brandywine heirloom tomatoes this year. It's the first year I've gotten lots of brown bottomed tomatoes - don't know if that variety is prone to that or what?

I've often wanted to post about umamis and still am not. Just going to mention that it's a fifth taste, and that parmesan is an umami.

Broccoli Soup...and bugs

I made a simple supper of broccoli soup with toasted bread last night. With the unusually warm weather for the Rocky Mountains, knowing winter is right around the corner, Monte and me have been working outside till dark. Once you harvest the main broccoli heads (I froze 26 lbs last month) the plants produce side shoots we tend to eat as they come. Since we were out of town, I harvested a bunch this week. Some had aphids so I kept soaking them in new basins of water. That's what I made the soup with.

I combined two recipes: one from our farm share newsletter and the other from the FoodNetwork.com. It was really good.

Saute in 3 Tb butter:

1-2 sliced onions

1-1 1/2 lb broccoli

1 tsp fresh thyme

(tsp fresh tarragon - I didn't taste this)

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

salt and pepper

3 Tb flour

Add 3 C chicken broth.

When the broccoli is soft enough puree with a hand-held blender in the pan.

Add 1/2-1 C cream to thin enough while pureeing.

Put in soup bowls and sprinkle a handful of grated cheese over the tops of the soup bowls and broil till melted and browning.

When almost done with our soup I said to Monte, "since we're also eating aphids, I'm reminded of the India study".

Actually I'll mention 2 studies. The first was done years ago on farm raised kids vs city kids and the growing amount of allergies. It's thought that because of such a focus on sterility and anti-bacterial everything, kids immune systems were not developing very strong, thus more allergies. 

Another more recent study has concluded that when people from India move to the western civilization, like going to school and living in England, and yet remaining vegetarian, they are developing poor health because the produce in the western countries is 'cleaner' - no bacteria and bugs!

Food for thought ...

Harvest

I'm relaxing. I got unexpected company. Monte came home from Calgary, Canada, a day early, and brought his partner Stan and a Norwegian, H(o-aw)ken, home with him Wednesday evening. Stan left yesterday and Haken leaves tomorrow.

I harvested the broccoli and cauliflower from our garden today - it's blanched and in the freezer. There was 26 pounds of broccoli! Now we'll be getting side shoots that we can eat as they come.

I could harvest chokecherries, but as their name implies, they do do something weird to my mouth, not exactly choking ... but they take so much sugar to make palatable. Some homesteader, maybe seventy years or so ago, planted them here along with rhubarb (the remains of a home is on our property, with outhouse, and a smoker, and spring water storage).

We've been eating BLT's with heirloom tomatoes (Brandywine). The plastic 'greenhouse' Monte covered them with is working great. I can raise the plastic whenever I want to let them enjoy the beautiful weather and for harvesting. I love eating the 'like-candy' cherry tomatoes.

(As I'm sitting here typing, there are several bull elk bugling non-stop outside!)

Did I say we joined a 'local' organic farm a few weeks ago, this late in the season? I weekly go to a pick-up place for our bin of produce. We figure with what we can't grow, and our season about to freeze and be done, and the farm shares go through mid December, we'll be getting fun stuff. I like the surprise of what's in the bin and making creative use of them through the week - like we've gotten these baby artichokes! ...


And oh, you should see the grapes in our greenhouse! We've been eating them. Our guests love them, not only the taste but just the environment of wicker furniture, grow lights and hanging clusters of grapes all over! If we don't eat them all, we put clusters in zip-lock bags and freeze - tiny popsicles!

Scarecrows

This morning I was thinking "I want to make a scarecrow", so I ordered a couple books from the library for ideas (and some folklore). We used to have a scarecrow on our front porch sitting in an old rocking chair, and I miss it. 

I remember one year when driving through Wisconsin the end of September, a town that went all out with scarecrows - like every home and building were responsible for 'decorating' in front of their place or lamp-post. It really was fun to see.

We do have a scarecrow in our vegetable garden, but we call it our "scare-elk". Someone left this metal knight in our driveway and it's been in our garden since. So I walked down to the garden and took a picture of it, as well as some other scenes from the garden. 

I have tons of broccoli ready to freeze! And forget the giant zucchini - they'll go in the compost bin.

I love the old sink in the garden to wash the dirt off right there, so I can eat stuff while I'm watering or weeding. Right now the carrots are great! I ate some snow peas while there today. We still have spinach, lettuce, and beets. Don't know if our winter squash will mature this year - it started off too cool.

Aerating/Weeding ;^)

I can't believe what I just did!! I aerated our lawn with our electric drill!

ACTUALLY ... I read in one of my garden books about planting some very early Spring flower bulbs in the grass. Since we've been doing tons of landscaping this year, we left only a small bit of lawn. I ordered a bunch more flower bulbs to plant in these new areas. So when I read about putting this flower in the grass ...

I've been wanting to aerate the grass, but not rent this huge aerator, and overseed the grass with new grass seed. I got this auger that goes on the drill for planting bulbs, but it's rather big and these bulbs are really small. So I put the 1/2" drill bit in, and started drilling holes in the grass.

I threw out the 100 bulbs of Chionodoxa, Glory-of-the-Snow (blue flowers), scattering them all over the grass. Then I'd drill holes and periodically put a bulb in it. And you know what? It's a great way to dig out dandelion and other weeds. Then I scattered grass seed and compost over the area.

I wonder what our neighbor's think ;^) of our doings sometimes.

A Year Ago

I was just looking at my calendar - 

I may be weird (or is it anal?), but I add things like "bear", and frosts and first snows and other weather tidbits. And too, things I harvest and freeze (with amounts), as well as spring plantings.

Just for your info -

I have several days starting around now last year of a bear that was bugging me, destroying my bird feeders. There's still a date from 2001 about "bear in freezer". It reminds me that we have to keep the garage doors closed! And I remember the well-rounded meal that bear got - from a ham, to bread, to peaches, and then the noise we heard from our bed: a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream he finished his meal with, licking it clean out on the driveway's gravel. Now we have the electric fence, as far as the birdfeeders go ... we'll see ...

And our first frost last year was Sept 3. NO!!! please! Not this year! That was early, but not by much. Then of course there's a couple months of Indian Summer, but still with cold nights and some snow flurries. I try and save as much as I can that first frost.

Calendar

So, today is 8/8/08. I guess 8 is a special 'prosperity' number in China, so today there are many people getting married.

I need to be getting ready for our next influx of company. Dawson had many friends here last night. I wasn't sure what was happening, so am glad I made a large pot of spaghetti and took homemade french (Italian) bread out of the freezer. They played a card game and then had a campfire and roasted marshmallows (thanks to it having started the rainy season, finally! - because there's been a fire ban). Now, him and guest Bonnie, are on a road trip with the college group.

August 1 is called Lammas Day - meaning 'loaf-mass' day. It's in connection with First Fruits. The first of the reaped wheat was ground and baked into a loaf of bread and offered in church. The Celtic year divided its calendar in four at February 1st, May 1st, August 1st and then November 1st. It was a day of looking forward to all the year's harvest bounty to come. Any failure due to weather or whatever, would mean no food until the following year's harvest.

Today we have our food coming from all parts of the world and we can be out of touch with the agrarian rhythms of life. I have been harvesting salad greens for awhile and snow peas, but tomatoes are just about to turn red, zucchini has begun. Winter squash and melons are just forming, and green beans, and soon my broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage will be forming their heads. So I'm not so out of touch, and am thankful for the fresh picked flavor and a freezer/storage full of home-grown produce throughout winter.

Lammas too is basically 40 days following Midsummer and John the Baptist Day. I posted about what that timing means to me, John's message, 'I must decrease and Jesus must increase', right in the midst of the full blown busyness of summer. John's sown seeds of needing to attend to my heart in the midst of summer. And Lammas reminds me of the giftings of first fruits in my life, growing and maturing. (The Bible and Calendar are full of days of forty!)

Wednesday, August 6th, was The Transfiguration of Jesus day. Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain; there He was transfiguratus est, "His face did shine as the sun", 'His outside changing to match the reality of His inside'. On either side of Him appeared Moses and Elijah. Art work depicts them representing the Law and the Prophets - Jesus fulfills the law and prophecy. I like that it's another place in scripture where the Trinity is evident: God's voice out of a light-radiant cloud, "This is My Son, marked by My love, focus of My delight. Listen to Him."

The metamorphothe, we've translated as transfigured, really can't be conveyed - God's glory beyond our grasping. I find it interesting to contemplate Peter's wanting to make three memorials, tabernacles, for help in remembering or visualizing or worshiping the event. We so often need to have a man-made image to help us remember the story. Hopefully that's all we want - something as a physical visual to remind our heart. But so often it goes further, like a golden calf. Human nature so often turns icons into idols.

Dawson's rock work

I said in my post last night I'd take a picture of the finished rock wall defining my east flower bed. And while walking around this morning looking at everything, I took a picture of my first hollyhock to bloom this year - I plant the heirloom black hollyhocks and save the seeds for future plantings.

I bought a new garden book I really like. It has a lot of practical upkeep gardening tips. She says to cut back hollyhocks right after all the flowers are done blooming and the plant will grow new side stocks to flower again in the season. I know this to be true, but hadn't thought of it as something for me to do each year with all my hollyhocks. I'm remembering how the plants do make new flower stocks after the elk have eaten the tops! (Loving my electric fence ;^) )

Think about it ... If the life cycle of a plant is to continue, then the final goal is to create seeds for new growth. So if the one time typical flowers get destroyed, then the plant is going to hurry to produce new flowers to go to seed. I learned this too with vegetables. We had a root cellar for years. The reason a lot of produce will keep well in a cold storage is because for most of them, they are created to spend the following year's growing season to produce seed.

Hmmm ... could a spiritual analogy be made from this? I love learning things!

Flowers

I love summer! I'm outside most of the time. I love sitting at my umbrella table on the back deck, both eating there and reading. I watch the birds from there - they seem to like the sanctuary I've created for them.

I'm posting a picture of flowers on my front porch. Monte built window boxes, but I gave up planting real plants in them years ago. The front porch gets only early morning sun for just a bit, and nothing seems to grow very well. There's also wind to contend with there too.

So I have boxes in the garage of seasonal flower changes. 

Happenings

As always, the 'Happenings' = Life around our Velveteen House.

It's summer. Dawson, 19, has some varied jobs: yard work and photography and catering (besides applying for the honors program a teacher submitted him for). But, we're paying him to work around here this summer. What does that mean? I'm just finding that out!

I came home last night to guys sitting around our little amphitheater having a campfire. They then watched a movie in Dawson's room. How they all sleep in there? ... Just let me say, it's a mess, and I don't see how they sleep - not without imprints of cracker boxes and bb-s, etc on their cheeks, etc!

They feel at home here. So I guess I need to have food stuffs at their disposal, cuz I'm not always going to cook for them. I saw that they made panini sandwiches of leftover grilled pork loins I had in the fridge for lunch, before they left today.

The other day, girls and guys were tie-dying cotton things they bought (T-shirts, socks, underwear, and sheets). Dawson knew I had this tie-dye kit from long ago around, and like his social-self so often does, "Lets have a tie-dye party!" And as they wait for things to get done? They eat. They play board games (which really IS cool). I am glad that Dawson is a do-it-yourselfer, and doesn't expect me to do it all and entertain them!

On the gardening end? Tho Monte's further tractor work will create more work, I'm finishing up the veggie garden and doing things better then ever (with Dawson's hard labor!). But we'll see if this season's weather co-operates. And I'm finishing up more beds created since we've extended the electric fence.

What's beautiful now? crabapple and cherry blossoms just ended, but WOW ... the lilacs are beautiful this year (it could be the electric fence and no elk!) ... and so fragrant. The first lilac picture is out my kitchen window and the second shows the east end of the house with that upper 'shaker'-deck off our bedroom.

My one daphne (which people say I can't grow, but it has for several years now) is blooming fragrance right now too.

Horticulturally A.D.D.!!

I was going to plant my tomatoes this morning, but it's rather cool and windy out there ... so I'm waiting some more!!! Been frustrating. I DO leave them in walls-of-water the whole growing season. I was told when we moved here I couldn't grow tomatoes, but I have for 20 years! It's a bit late, but it's been done this way before and still worked. With the water that's held in tubes surrounding the plants is heated, they take off.

I was listening to the radio's Garden Wise Guys this morning and heard a term that definitely defines me - horticulturally A.D.D.!!

But, they were saying this summer might not be a good one for tomatoes, peppers, and beans, since the days get hot and evenings and some days have been quite cool. But at my altitude I've always planted the warm loving plants with a black plastic or weed block AND keep the beds covered all summer with what's called 'floating row covers'. So we'll see.

Remember last summer I said I was reading The $64 Tomato? It's a very fun book. With food costs rising, I'm hearing more stories of people replacing their grass yards with vegetable beds and fruit bush/tree patches.

Ramblings

I'm supposed to be working on my piece in next week's church services, but first I'm writing some stuff I've thought of but not written. I'd have lots more written if there were such a device that could transfer thinking to paper or computer! Monte's finishing roto-tilling the next part of the garden I need to plant. Then all that's left is the borders. Dawson's digging a trench all around to put chicken wire. We're going to see if we can prevent the pocket gophers from burrowing in. I'm going to put week block around the edges and plant edible bushes like currants, jostaberry, cherry, serviceberry ...

We've past a few Saint Feast Days, just to mention -
27- There is another Augustine, Italian, and sent by Pope Gregory in 596 to England, and he ended up living in Canterbury, so he's Augustine of Canterbury. He was supposedly a tedious prig and did not get along with the Anglo-Saxon 'savages' - and even less so with the Celts. Gregory had told him to respect the local customs and not destroy pagan temples and give witness by their lives.

The 30th was Joan of Arc Day. Her hearing of voices from Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret of Antioch, and Michael the Archangel, led her into the Hundred Year's War in its 87th year as a teenager, and led her to her death, because she would not deny them. Though somewhat of a French victory for a doubtful French Prince, she was sold to the English, who found her guilty of heresy and burned her at the stake in 1431, as a 'witch', at nineteen. Authors Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw were madly in love with her. Many plays and movies have been done on her story.

The 30th in 1483 is the day Le Morte d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, was published. King Arthur tales have captured imaginations of every generation and spawned other literary classics and movies. Malory claims he was a hapless medieval soldier who identified himself as "a servant of Jesu, both day and night." He didn't invent the tales but collated them from documentary histories, ballads, and minstrel songs, turning them into a coherent narrative structure. When did King Arthur live? Legend has it, he died on May 30th in 542 from wounds in a battle.

31- Visitation of Mary to Elisabeth

And oh ... In reading the news, today is Celebrate the Child day in China, but most aren't celebrating. It's interesting that most recent news, other than the lakes, is why schools seemed to be the buildings that didn't hold up. I don't hear anyone holding rallies against the One Child rule. Does China still only allow one child per couple? So you have a child die in the earthquake - it's your only child!

A week ago I was going to write and say you can go to the World Vision website and donate money. Monte and me have done work with World Vision. It's more than just adopt a child for $30 a month. They have storage facilities all over the world, ready in an instant to mobilize to disasters. The NGO's (Non Government Organizations) that work around the world know each others strengths and call upon one another for help. The Red Cross and World Vision are allowed into most countries right away - World Vision with their kits for families for tents, clean water, etc. Some of the Child Adopt organizations work through churches so are not allowed into a lot of countries. World Vision was allowed into the Muslim countries following earthquakes and tsunamis. Little Christ's walk the world!

Happenings

I have been blogging in my head for a week. Does that make sense? I talk in my head - forever! Sometimes I wish it would just shut up! It's what causes me to not sleep; been a curse since I was a teen - the talk, or reliving everything, or composing stuff I'd write, and thus, the lack of sleep. I sure don't want to get into it all now, or I'll not go to sleep.

Monte is watching some scene selections from a movie we just watched while I sit reading emails, writing this, and having my nightcap. It's had him saying he's returned to his ancestral roots. It was a Scandinavian kinda Viking era, tho not the warring stuff, movie. With his geology, he's been to Norway and Norwegians have visited us several times. He's pure Swedish, I'm part, and then Dutch and English - the English that came over on the Mayflower - Governor Bradford,  to be exact. But I look at all those Northerners so interwoven that we're all really One.

All I want to say for now is that I'm heavily gardening from morning till night, thoroughly enjoying the out-of-doors. And like I said earlier, my looking-forward-to, my bare feet have been in the dirt - they are stained! I was thinking of this when showering tonight - I still will wear sandals - in spite! 

But then genetically, I don't have feet or hands that can ever by 'pretty'. My nails grow upward, never curving downward. And my fingers and toes are stubby. AND I use my hands too much (and enjoy digging my feet in the dirt) to ever hold a mani/pedicure. If my nails don't get shortened from all my varieties of labors, I slice my nails often in my cooking from scratch (so we get some calcium from my nails! That's weird, I know, and gross, and not so prevalent - but Jesus used hyperbole to make a point!)

If I keep reading Annie Dillard ... but listening to murder mysteries counter-balances that ... 

Weather report

It's almost the end of May! It's been so cold and rainy for days. I've got bare-root strawberries and daylilies in the garage. I'm wanting to harden off some plants but not in this cold! And I don't want to plant my beans and squash until the soil is warm and not so wet.

I always wrestle with what to do with the old plants. I need a place just to put the early onions and spinach and kale and whatever that comes up from last year. I don't like to get rid of them. I've been eating them. But the old strawberries?

I'm creating a new bed with weed barrier cloth for the 3 new varieties I ordered. I was thinking I could put little pots under the runners later each summer for the babies to root in and plant in a permanent spot elsewhere.

I've heard it's best to have a three year cycle of strawberry beds - meaning, not letting them live beyond three years. Do people never let the runners root in these beds? Cuz then you end up with a new generation. Could you spray paint the oldest plants and use a new color for each year and then you know which are the aged to get rid of? Hmmm ...

I need to get going. I'm meeting my mom and Jim to go out and eat and then go plan a summer family reunion since we're the only ones living here. This actually is going to be a meeting of totally unknown Kansas contingency from my mom's dad's side. Monte's not going - he's running at the nose. He keeps saying, "My nose has never run like this, and I've not had a cold for years!" which he hasn't. I guess it's good for his immune system. He got it from Dawson last week when they were in the extreme AZ heat. I don't want to get it, so I'm not sleeping with him ;^)

Happenings

Getting ready for a weekend of company. My newly married Heather, with Bill, are flying in tomorrow morning. They'll be getting a rental truck to pack their stored stuff here, and drive to their new home at Fort Hood, outside Austin Texas.

Monte and Dawson have been in the SW Arizona desert this week doing geology. Dawson's been posting pictures on his photo site. I like the one of Monte's silhouette with pick in the rising sun. Normally you'd think 'sunset', but with afternoon temps over 100 degrees, they are going out at dusk and working till just after noon, or till they can't stand it! And Dawson captured a picture of a jackrabbit jumping. They fly home Saturday.

Saturday afternoon the whole family - with Travis and Sarah, and my mom and Jim - will be here and share supper together.

Tonight is my second needlefelt class in this 4 week course. We do wool-sculpted heads tonight.

So I'm off to ready the house and get ready for tonight's class.

And since I so often give a weather report for our 8000' Colorado Mtn area: supposed to be cooler today and rain, but it's been beautiful! Got some garden seeds planted, but need Monte home to ready the rest of the garden. The greenhouse is full and I'm starting to harden off the broccoli ('cole') family plants and some flowers for planting outside next week. Apple and Nanking Cherry trees/bushes are in bloom. Lilacs are soon to bloom. Hummingbirds are humming, and pine siskins are in abundance at the thistle feeder, and I'm keeping my eyes open for the occasional goldfinch. Someone has said we shouldn't get any more snow this season. Hoping.

Happenings

We almost always sleep with the sliding glass door open. Yesterday, awakening in the early morning I whispered, "shh". Monte and me lay listening ... birds singing (I like to recognize them - name them) ... and then, a hummingbird! The hummingbirds always come around mid-May and I anxiously await them, as I do the blue birds.

Growing up in the southern Arizona desert, I never heard hummingbirds 'hum' - so why are they called 'hummingbirds'? In the Colorado Mountains they are NOISY! all summer long. The Rufous shows up early July and then things really get feisty! He, with his bright copper color in the sunlight, doesn't want to share the feeder.

So yesterday morning before leaving for MOPS I cleaned the feeder and made the syrup mixture and hung it on its hook on the back deck. It's snowing again now, but I know summer is around the corner because the hummingbirds are back!

Sat with friends Jeanie and Marty after MOPS at Starbucks for over an hour talking. Marty wanted to talk about books since she just finished reading The Shack (a good read), and we go off on many bunny trails. But as my sister-in-law Linda always says, "Bunny trails come home".

I came home to Dawson and four friends playing Twister in the parlor! What's so unusual about that you may ask? First off, kids rarely play real games together any more, AND they are college kids! School is done (can I brag? he thinks he's got another 4.0 grade average again this semester). Later, after I put groceries away and wanted to check my emails, they were on their stomachs on my 'office' floor playing cards. Then later they were playing a game at the kitchen table. After finding out they weren't staying for supper, I teased them that they were trying out every room in the house playing games! (Remember my post about our Velveteen House?)

So, after Dawson's piano recital tomorrow night, him and Monte are leaving for southern Arizona to spend a week in the 100 degree desert doing geology. In getting ready, Monte and me are going to combine errands this afternoon down in Denver, and I start another needlefelting class tonight (we're saving gas).

So I'll be Home Alone again for a week. Yuck, looking out earlier I saw some elk go by and now it's snowing hard! I want to get my garden planted. The greenhouse plants are getting big and are ready to go out! I'm ready to go out! I want to get my hands and bare feet in the dirt!

Compost and Mother's Day

I get interesting gifts for Mother's Day - but they are what I ask for! There's been many years that I ask for compost bins. We've finally learned how to get great compost, so this year Monte made me a supper-nice 3-compartment compost bin. I've asked for rototillers and other gardening stuff.

I came down Mother's Day morning to a wrapped gift for me from Dawson. He's a gift giver and a creative wrapper. Lately his gifts have been wrapped in the many pages we helped edit for his college classes. He gave me a rock water-fountain. So now I can sit here in my recliner, surrounded by my many house plants and have the soothing sound of tumbling water.

When the rest of the world is waiting to be seated at restaurants, I prefer not to join the masses. But I get taken out quite a bit, so eating out on Mother's Day isn't so special. Just like when the rest of the world is vacationing, I'd rather stay home. But then we often go on mini vacations, so there isn't that need.

So is it that we enjoy treats, like dates, on a regular basis so there isn't this huge need for needing a holiday to make things happen ... or is it that we don't like crowds ... or are we just rebellious? (I do have a rebellious streak in me.)

Actually yesterday, after church, we went with friends to eat at Pannera Bread and sat talking quite awhile before Monte and me went to the REI outdoor store to get a new GPS he needs for his geology field trip he's going on next week. But like gardening paraphernalia, I like looking at all the camping, backpacking, and outdoor activity paraphernalia too. So maybe it wasn't a thing most would do for Mother's Day, but I enjoyed what I did with Monte. 

Can you believe it? - today, late this afternoon, the weather instantly changed from sunny upper 60's to freezing wind and rain. Denver is supposed to get 3" of snow overnight, so we'll get more! I finished planting my summer flower pots, but of course they'll stay inside awhile more. I filled all the bird feeders. I trimmed the grapevine in the greenhouse (so many grapes coming this year!) and emptied all the garden and kitchen scrap buckets in the compost bin.

Gardening at T&S's

We went to Ft Collins Sunday through Monday to help Travis and Sarah get this year's garden ready. Since they have a new dog, they felt the need for garden boundaries. So after spreading the well decomposed manure over their back yard and tilling it in, Monte and Travis screwed together boards for raised beds.

Sarah and me carried on spreading the manure on front beds after aerating them and made a new narrow bed in the front patio and planted flowers and scarlet runner bean seeds with some sweet pea seeds.

We're all excited about home-grown produce! We did Mexican last night, fitting with Cinco de Mayo, with typical burritos we make and the stuffed grilled poblanos (see my recipes). Poblanos did so good in their garden last year (I'm jealous) that they were having grilled chilies several times a week and are missing that. 

It looked like it might rain today, so I scattered old wildflower seeds along with grass seed and threw manure to cover in one of the done areas Monte had made last fall next to our campfire area. Got to get our garden ready to plant now. I've got my greenhouse full of sprouting and growing seed flats, and more to do.

May Day

April showers

Bring May flowers.

A friend who used to live here always left little nursery flower starts in my mailbox for May Day. Tradition is to leave flowers at people's front door. Some years I think ahead and do that. 

I did mail some pots with herb seeds to Monte's Mom and my daughter Heather. And planting the herb seed pots for my Mom and my daughter-in-love (now you won't be surprised Sarah). 

Beautiful last day of April yesterday. Monte and Dawson went twice to have a horse ranch load both the back of the truck and trailer with well composted horse manure. Now we'll get some buffalo manure from our friend nearby who has buffalo, then we'll be ready to get our gardens ready for another year of growing.

But alas, not yet. It's been snowing since we awoke.

I'm posting some needlefelted flower pictures from some of my students.

1sts of Spring Chart

When my kids were young I always put up a Firsts of Spring chart, making a new one every year. It's become so much a part of all of us, that even now, without the chart, someone will tell me "I saw a crocus" or "I saw a bluebird... or robin ..." or "I smelled a stink bug".

I'd mark the chart with the dates - like when we see the Aspens with the catkins that come before the leaves. I always mark my calendar when I see (actually hear!) the first hummingbird. We've already mentioned amongst ourselves that we heard the flickers and their mating calls, which seems to first begin on our metal stove pipe! We saw the first grass snake when Trav's friends were here last weekend.

I tend to mark my calendar too when we see a bear (like my posts last August!) and when the hummingbirds, bluebirds and robins leave in the fall ... when we get the first frost and snow. One year we had the oddest event of a tornado touch down in the garden and totally take away all my floating row covers and some black plastic and some plants! We never did find evidence, even though I looked as we drove places.

It's made us more aware. I used to love the smell of the rain when we lived in the desert - it's very unique. Here in the mountains there's an obvious smell of Spring with the early rains and the sun angle in the sky. We see lots of rainbows, many of them double.

I see these as God Winks. Oh how many winks I bet we miss!

Spring Signs

I saw my first flowers yesterday. It's on-and-off sunny and yet snow sprinkles - it really doesn't know whether to rain or snow. Remember ... I live at 8000 feet! But I took some pictures.

I take pictures every year but I'm going to try and date them and keep a scrapbook this year. I did buy a really fun book from an Amazon seller that's given me ideas for carrying on a scrapbook in a fun way. I do have pages of garden diagrams and notes and dreams from years back all on one clipboard. I change ink color for differing years notes on the same pages. I have notes of what's dead - via underground voles or gophers, elk or dear, or digging dog! - or too, just needing some winter mulching or watering.


With an electric fence, we're excavating more (once it's done snowing and dries out more - it is mostly melted now) and eliminating most of the grass area. We're dreaming of a pond too. We do have an old pond my oldest son made years ago of concrete. We did the sump-pump thing and a series of small ponds cascading into the larger. First off, unless sealed properly, concrete absorbs the water. Secondly, elk like stepping in and messing up things let alone wrecking all the surrounding plantings. And then ... one year, Travis brought home trout he'd caught in a pond down the road. That was nice, until in one night raccoon had eaten them!

This week begins my beginning of starting seeds in my greenhouse. I posted earlier pictures about heat coils and grow lights set up and ready to go. For now I've got a few warm weather herbs I bought there and four flats of stages of wheatgrass - which we've been juicing now. Can't tell you if we feel any miracle change yet! But it's fun.

locavore

Locavore is the new 2007 Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. I'm just reading about it.

It's all about the popular trend in using locally grown ingredients. It encourages people to buy from Farmer's Markets or even grow or pick their own food. As local and fresh as possible has got to be the best tasting and most nutritious!

Some groups are spelling it 'localvores'. (For further interesting comments along this vein and another dictionary word, check out my blog called Orthorexia.)

Indoor Gardening

I had an opportunity to purchase some Aerogardens cheap, so I got three. The third one had some minor difficulties which are now solved, so my Italian herbs are just sprouting. But the Garden Salad mix and Tomatoes are off to a great start. Tomorrow I'm going to raise the lights to the next level.

For years I've dreamed of sprouting and growing plants better, and possibly keep us in salad makings through winter. We did keep a cold frame outside that gave us salad makings most of the winter - until voles found it! But it's so labor intensive with putting insulation back on every night and removing in the morning, and sometimes needing to crack the glass open so the plants don't cook! And then last winter with the 3 foot snow dumped just before Christmas that never melted ...

The key for seed and plant growth in low sun angle cool weather is heat for the soil and grow lights. Now I've set that up in the greenhouse! With all the excavating and landscaping we are doing this year, the cheapest route is to start from seed.

Every year, I do start my veggie garden seeds in the house, on the rug in the dining room, just for a bit of warmth, and then move the sprouted seeds to the cooler greenhouse attached to the south side of our house. My growing season averages about ninety days, so I need to get a head start on some things. And too, I've learned what things start best in the garden.

But there's some things I know I can start from seed but have not had a lot of luck with and think it's the soil temperature. So this year will be a year of experiment. I'm going to start my garden seedlings in the greenhouse soon, and the grow lights that I can raise as plants grow, will keep the plants from getting leggy. After the garden starts, I'll start the perennial seeds I got for landscaping and can be planting them out through fall. Then I'll experiment through winter. If the winter gardening is successful in the greenhouse, then I'll be passing on the Aerogardens to my kids.

So far, what I've got growing in the greenhouse is wheatgrass. It's about ready to start harvesting. It's supposed to be very nutritious for you. We had bought some and Monte tried just eating it. His comment was, "It tastes like grass ... not objectionable though". I tried blending it with some juice, and it doesn't 'chew up' very well. So we'll 'juice' it through an extractor like a meat-grinder. I'll give you an update on that.